rfactor - iracing- arca sim racing
all excellent and extremely addictive racing sims. would suggest waiting til january of 2010 for rfactor2 though and make sure you have a decent usb steering wheel and pedals. logitech G25 is my suggestion or ECCI if you have money to burn.

yeah - the above pc titles focus mainly on proper physics and realism whereas the consoles put alot of focus on the eye candy. I do enjoy the console titles as well for a bit of fun but if you want true simulation rfactor is where it's at. Turn 10 Studio's with forza 2 was a huge improvement as far as proper physics on a console so hopefully forza franchise will keep pushing it further and further away from the arcade style racing and we can end up with a legit console racing sim. If you like nascar style oval racing you need Arca Sim Racing. Nothing compares to the realism of the physics. Iracing is "prettier" and 100 times more expensive but thats about all.

I think I'm getting old. Don't enjoy alot of the new games that come out anymore. Allthough not too far back I played this arcade game at D&B...I think it was called Tokyo Chase. Basic premise is your in a cop car in a high speed chase and you have to damage the fugitive's car. Sh*tty cartoony graphics, but addictive as hell.

Mianiak isn't kidding. From what I understand he's the creator of the new GS Camaro included in a mod by 'The Pits' mod team called 'NAGT' (North American GT).

Until now, NAGT has included cars mainly from the SCCA Speed World Challenge GT class. But, just for us, they've now released v1.5 which includes the beautiful Stevenson Sunoco Camaro GS from Grand Am's support series, the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (formerly the KONI Challenge).

There are a few things about rFactor that I'd like to clarify:

1. rFactor 2 will almost certainly be backward compatible with the original. I don't think they will sell more than ten copies if it's not, and here's why -

2. rFactor has an ENORMOUS modding community who create new race cars and race tracks for the sim. I'm a little picky, so I don't have everything that's available, but even so I have over 220 race tracks installed on my PC for rFactor alone. You can even drive and race the street versions of the new Camaro against the other new muscle cars with a mod called Modern Muscle.

3. All of the mods for rFactor are available to download for free. Many of the modders will accept donations via PayPal, and a few will require you to purchase a different sim CD ($10 tops) to use as a key if they've lifted any code from another sim. Other than that, none of them charge a dime for all their hard work.

4. I've heard complaints on sim racing message boards from people who don't want to go through the expense and hassle of setting up a whole racing rig (steering wheel, pedals, shifter, etc.) in their home office just for a sim. The truth is that you don't need to do that at all if you don't want to. Following a crash I'm a bit of a physical wreck, and a rig just isn't realistic for me. So I race using a regular wired Xbox 360 controller instead. I mapped all the controls to the buttons and triggers on the controller and it works great!

5. Quality. rFactor is just the best there is. The driving is frighteningly realistic, and many of the free mods available (e.g. NAGT, HistoriX GT & TC, the Nurburgring Nordschleife, Virtua-LM's Le Mans '77-'85 and Mid-Ohio) are absolutely stunning. Some of the mods are obviously created by beginners and lack the polish of the pros, but retain a fidelity to accuracy that comes from real passion and hard work.

6. It's a PC sim. This means you can create your own championship seasons using virtually any circuits from around the world driving an incredible variety of race cars, and if you're pretty savvy on a computer you can tweak nearly any part of the game you wish to, including the AI. The AI is a little blind to where you are on the track, but it's bloody fast with the right settings.

Give it a shot guys! It's dirt cheap and a great experience. I was thrilled to find a thread here dedicated to rFactor, and I'll bet you'll love it.

Here are some screen shots of my virtual-self driving the new NAGT Sunoco Camaro around Snetterton in the UK at close to dusk. I chose this circuit because the track cameras provide pretty cool close-ups in the replay movies. Enjoy!